Voices for Voices®

How Decision-Making Shapes Our Lives and Mental Wellbeing | Episode 228

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 228

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How Decision-Making Shapes Our Lives and Mental Wellbeing | Episode 228

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When does a fleeting thought transform into life-changing action? In this deeply personal episode, Justin Alan Hayes pulls back the curtain on how Voices for Voices® approaches its mission of helping 3 billion people worldwide.

The journey has already led to remarkable milestones—over 220 episodes reaching more than 50 countries—but the path hasn't been without challenges. Justin candidly explores how his decision-making process parallels that of collaborative partners like Dr. Isaacson of Kutztown University Orchestra, whose mind was already prepared when an opportunity arose to integrate a special needs orchestra with university musicians. Similarly, Justin's openness to possibilities allowed him to accept invitations to Ukraine despite wartime conditions, creating unique content that serves communities often overlooked by mainstream media.

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the honest examination of mental health throughout these experiences. "Mental health is still health," Justin emphasizes, sharing his own surprising discovery through therapy that despite his public-facing persona, he identifies more as an introvert. This vulnerability creates space for listeners to reflect on their own self-understanding journey. The episode weaves together organizational growth, personal development, and the practical realities of running a nonprofit media platform committed to tackling difficult topics like human trafficking when timing is critical.

Whether you're interested in behind-the-scenes insights about content creation, curious about the psychology of decision-making, or simply looking for authentic conversation about balancing public mission with personal wellbeing, this episode offers valuable perspective. Follow Voices for Voices® across all major platforms, and consider supporting their nonprofit mission through their website or Venmo to help their message reach even more people who need it.

Justin Alan Hayes shares the journey of Voices for Voices® as it approaches 300 episodes, reflecting on the organization's mission to help 3 billion people through addressing difficult topics and creating meaningful experiences.

• Explaining why certain topics like human trafficking receive concentrated coverage
• Collaborating with Kutztown University Orchestra and Hearts for Music special needs orchestra
• Process of decision-making for opportunities like Ukraine trip and awards presentations
• Understanding mental health as health while reflecting on personal discoveries through therapy
• Reaching audiences in over 50 countries worldwide
• Operating as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with various platforms

If you can give us a big thumbs up, like, share, comment that would be awesome and very helpful. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization and accept donations at voicesforvoices.org or through Venmo at voices for voices, with all donations being 100% tax deductible.

#decisionMaking #mentalWellbeing #lifeLessons #personalGrowth #mindfulness #selfImprovement #psychology #cognitiveBiases #healthyMindset #thoughtLeadership #socialMedia #contentMarketing #influencerMarketing #brandBuilding #digitalContent #voicesforvoices #justinhayes #justinalanhayes


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Justin Alan Hayes:

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you for joining us on this episode. We are, as you can tell, over 220 episodes in our episode catalog, on our way to 300 at least by the the end of 2025, and we couldn't do this without you, can't do this without your love and support. So thank you. If you could do us a big favor, you know, give us a big thumbs up like follow, share all those good things Don't cost anything and help us share our message and our content with the hopes and our goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So thank you for that. Thank you for tuning in and we've had a lot of activity around Voices for Voices here this. Well, I say that I wanted to say the first part of 2025, but we're already. We're already in May, so that's the year is just flying by.

Justin Alan Hayes:

We're doing the best we can to again bring the best, brightest content. We're bringing a lot of topics that some other organizations, other shows don't want to touch organizations other shows don't want to touch, but we feel that helping people comes in all shapes and sizes. Particular topics come to us for shows, and so sometimes it may seem where we're focusing on one topic or a couple of topics heavily for a period of time, and what that really means is is there, there is time, sensitive content and information that we want to share, and so that's why you're seeing a lot of condensed uh, or a of episodes you know talking about, you know human trafficking. We all know, you know P Diddy, epstein, we get all that. We've, you know, talked with David Solomon, who's a human trafficking survivor, and there are so many things that we're learning and so much information, so many different people, and when we find out about that, we want to share that. When we find out about that, we want to share that because, again, we want to help people, we don't want to hurt people, and so if we have information that can help people, can help families, help children, help anybody, we want to share that, we don't want to hold back. So that's where we're at. On topic-wise, voices for Voices.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You saw, we had the great privilege and honor to play with the Kutztown University Orchestra, with Hearts for Music. It's a great special needs orchestra, able to integrate with an orchestra and that was such a great moment and just to be a little piece in in that puzzle, uh, it just felt so good to bring individuals who may not have been able to perform on a stage and have people in the seats to watch and listen to them, and so the fact that that was able to occur, that was just amazing and definitely one of the highlights of the organization. And just being a small part in that and we were able to actually talk the following day with the Kutztown University Orchestra Director, dr Isaacson, and so you can look through and find those two episodes that we filmed. It was fascinating, a great person and it was just a joy to be able to have the opportunity to speak with him about his journey, about his orchestra, about how his thoughts and feelings and he has, I believe, a son that has autism, and so he understands a little bit more than somebody who doesn't have an individual with autism in their family, and so that was just really really neat to get his perspective. And I've talked about it a little bit prior, where I get asked all the time how certain events, certain experiences, how they happen, how I make a decision or we make a decision as an organization to go forward with a thought, with a potential experience.

Justin Alan Hayes:

With a thought with a potential experience, and my thoughts are very similar to Dr Isaacson at Kutztown University, because I had asked him, you know, how did this opportunity of a special needs orchestra being embedded with his university orchestra, how did that even come about? And in a condensed version and you've got to check out the interviews it was just awesome to be able to talk to him. But what he mentioned was my head, my brain, my thoughts are already in that head space, meaning he was already thinking about that. Like I said, he has a child with special needs challenges. I have special needs and challenges myself, so I don't, I don't say those, I don't say it lately, um and and so for him to talk about.

Justin Alan Hayes:

When the opportunity presented itself through one of his orchestra members, who was, uh, or who was connected with Hearts for Music, which is a special needs orchestra, she came and mentioned something to Dr Isaacson and his mind was already in that space where he wanted to do something like that. But the opportunity up until that point just never really presented itself to be able to like that. But the opportunity up until that point just never, never really presented itself to to be able to do that. And so when that opportunity did present itself to him, he was ready to act and and start implementing. And, uh, you know there's a couple practice sessions that the groups did together prior to the performance in front of close to 300 attendees, which is phenomenal. And so, like I said, his mind was already in that space that when this opportunity came about, it was easy for him to say, yeah, I would love to do that. And so it was easy for him to just get the plans and get the planning in motion.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so that's how I answer questions around different experiences. You know, the trip to Ukraine, a trip to Romania, some of these mission trips we've done and other ones locally and nationally that we have have have done and that's that's where I'm at is as an organization we want to, like we talk about so much, we want to help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. We want the organization to continue on as and when I'm no longer here. So when you know, different opportunities like that opportunity for Dr Isaacson came about when they present themselves to me, meaning that if I'm able to, I'll probably try it out, see what happens. And that's exactly what happened with the trip to Ukraine. Had one of our guests Ukrainian descent and he teaches at a university, and we interviewed him. I think we did one or two episodes, I can't remember. You have to check for that on our catalog. And after the show we were talking it was still on camera, but it was off camera because it wasn't recording. And so he invited me. He said, yeah, bring your show over to Ukraine.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And I already had a trip that was planned to Western Europe, that was planned to Western Europe and I had an invitation and, of course, the all the safety concerns with, with what's happening, uh made the decision, uh, to, to, to go over and and to do that and to do that. And so that topic wouldn't have meant anything to me if I wasn't already planning to travel into that region, but since I was and I had the offer, I was thinking, wow, that that would be fascinating. You know, obviously, all the safety concerns to have that opportunity to, to just be at the people, uh, experience what they're experiencing, uh, with the, with what that's what's occurring over there in, uh, in ukraine and in the region, and so that was already in my mind of well, like if that opportunity comes up, maybe, maybe I'll try it, and so that's how that went forward. Very, very similar to you know, dr isaacson, as far as that thought process, and so that's how I answered questions about other events. How did you decide that you wanted to travel to New York City and present Tyrus with his award in person after the Gutfeld show taping? After the Gutfeld show taping? Because I was already in my mind and in my thoughts that if it was possible, I wanted to, I wanted to do it, and so that's that's where those things kind of come from. And so why am I going through this whole whole process? And it's, you know, very, it seems very dry. Up until this point Just saw a lot of mechanics about, like mine and thinking.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And then the mental health obviously plays a role as well, because, you know, a trip to Ukraine, with the war efforts that are going on there, there are a lot of times I was scared, I was fearful, I was afraid, and I know it took a toll on my mental health, because literally you have to be on guard 24-7, which isn't really anything much different than a regular day, no matter where I'm at, but to have, you know, missiles being shot over into an area where you're at, that can be and was, as I said, fearful, afraid, what's going to happen? What did I get myself into? Why did I do this? You know, those thoughts do creep in, and so that the mental health side definitely played a huge role in that, that trip and everything, because there is with just about everything that we do as humans, there's a thought process of I'm going to go take a shower, I'm going to go brush my teeth, I'm hungry, it's lunchtime, I want to get some food to eat for lunch, I have a trip coming and I don't have any gas in my car, so I need to get gas from the gas station. Or, if you have an electric vehicle or natural gas, you do those, and so we make those decisions, and so some of them are.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Obviously, whether I'm going to brush my teeth or not is a little bit different than am I going to go to Ukraine or not, but in the same sense, it's still a thought that's going on in our head, and some we think about more than others, you know. For, in the market for a new car, versus, hey, let's order a pizza for dinner. Right, there's still a thought process that goes through, except ordering a pizza is a little, a little less intense than if we're looking for a new vehicle, or if we're gonna maybe go on vacation and we're gonna rent a vehicle or whatever. You know, all these are hypotheticals, but the these thoughts do come into our mind. Some are easier, some are are a little bit more difficult. You know, purchasing a house, moving into a condo, an apartment, dorm if we're talking about school or these things are all thoughts to go through our mind. Again, some easier to process, meaning much quicker decision than others. Others could take a little bit longer, which, as well as they should.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You're talking about the time it's going to take to look at and purchase a house, versus where we're going to order pizza from for dinner, your lunch or maybe even breakfast. A lot of shops aren't open for breakfast, but I've been known to say that I could eat pizza every day of the week. It would just be a you know different, uh, you know from from a different, uh pizza shop and uh, you know different uh toppings on them, and so all these are thoughts that go through our, our mind, and and so we we don't want to lose sight of. You know making decisions and, uh, you know we're talking about all this. This is all mental health. Uh, this is all. You know things are talking about all this, this, all mental health. This is all.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And things are going on in our mind. And when we have kind of that overload, where we have A lot of different thoughts going through our head or the intensity of them, you know where we're just like, oh my gosh, I'm tired. I'm not tired physically, like I'm tired, like my mind's tired. Mental health is still health. We talk about it all the time. Mental health is still health, just like physical health is health, just like physical health, is his health. Much easier to see. You know a sprained wrist or ankle and see that progression of healing versus.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You know the real men, mentality, the mental side of things and in our minds that if we don't talk about them, nobody really knows about them. Usually they may just think, oh, he's quiet, she's quiet. I wonder why they're not doing this or doing that. And so I do have a quite public life, obviously with the organization and the shows and different things, different opportunities and interactions. But if you were to see me off camera, like my therapist, psychiatrist, says that not be an introvert, to be I don't want to say more outgoing, but being able to talk to a camera, a microphone and just talk through particular topics, and so those are things that we just really don't know as individuals.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Sometimes I thought I was an extrovert and my psychiatrist said, no, you aren't. And I was like what do you mean? I teach, we do these shows and we do a lot of public-facing things. And then he brought up you know what do you do when you're not on camera and you're not doing these public events? And then it made a whole lot of sense. I said, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, I I'm not as outgoing as I thought I was, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so when I was able to learn that, it felt good to understand myself a little bit more than what I had known about myself, and so that could seem scary. You know, oh my gosh, they're talking about me, they're judging me and all that Part of that's their job. Their job's to help. So I don't look at my psychiatrist judging me, I look at her helping me, and so, whatever that may be a conversation, a thought, a topic, a trip, medication, non medication, whatever comes up, it's all to help help me, and so by me helping myself as much as I am really can, then I'm nobody's perfect and I'm nowhere near close to even trying to be say that I'm perfect. So I don't know everything and you don't know everything, and so when we talk to a specialist, that that's their job is to to help, and so my psychiatrist and therapist is helping me, so I'm able to help you and others, which is probably why we're over 50.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Our show is in over 50 countries 620, sharing, screenshotting, just helping people, and we don't quite know all those things that are happening, how we are helping people are helping people. It's very it's more on the rare side where we find out a specific thing, a specific topic, a specific show, help the specific person go through a specific thing. We do get those, but there's a lot that's happening that we don't get and and so then we look at the analytics and that's where we go. Oh my gosh, we did not realize this at all. We're the United States based organization and the United States is only one country. So again, there's over 50, 49 other countries that are tuning in and I'm just blown away.

Justin Alan Hayes:

All of us at Voices for Voices are blown away because of that, and it's that love and support of you tuning in, no matter where you're at on the globe watching, listening, sharing that we're able to do this, and I'm able to the best I can share topics, and not every topic, like we don't like every specific. We don't like everything about a specific person maybe. So I like to look at it as a band like, okay, my favorite band is third eye blind, and because they're my favorite band doesn't mean I like every single song that they've written and play, but they're still my favorite band. We can think the same thing about an actor or an actress. Well, they're my favorite actor, actress or favorite celebrity because of this, but I might not agree with political beliefs or whatever that may be, and so we know that not all our shows are going to resonate with every single person across the world. We know that.

Justin Alan Hayes:

We invite you, however, to scroll through, and we have so many episodes and again, it just blows my mind that we were able to do this. It was a thought in my mind several years back and here we are. It's incredible and we can't do it again without you. So if you can give us a big thumbs up like share comment. That would be awesome and very helpful. That's something that is free to do and we are also a 501c3 nonprofit, which a lot of people don't know or doesn't really resonate with them because they're seeing this flurry of social media content and shows.

Justin Alan Hayes:

We are, we're a 501c3 organization. We do accept donations. You go to voices for voices org and right there you'll be able to, in the middle of the screen, let's say yes, if you're able to support our organization, voices for voices, and the show that we're doing, there are costs that are being eaten by myself and other members of our board and organization. So if you're able to donate $1, $10, we would greatly, greatly appreciate that. That allows us to continue on this, on this journey. Or you can go over to venmo and look at voices for voices and you can donate that way as well. All proceeds, all donations, are 100 percent tax deductible because we are a 501c nonprofit charity organization and we can't do this.

Justin Alan Hayes:

A stress, because if you weren't watching, if you weren't listening, we'd have no reason to do this show. We would have, we would yeah, we'd have no reason to to do that because nobody'd be watching, nobody'd be listening. So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Everybody at Voices for Voices to have you watch, listen wherever that may be, whatever platform that may be If you want to watch it or listen to it on iHeart or Spotify, amazon Music, odyssey, the Odyssey app If you want to watch it on YouTube or Rumble. We're very blessed to be able to be in so many different platforms that serve certain demographics and we thank you for being with us, watching, listening and until next time, I hope that you enjoy this episode. Check out the rest of our catalog of episodes at your convenience. Download them all and then look through what, uh, what, the ones you want to. You want to save and watch or listen at a at a future date. So we'll see you next time. Until then, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

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